


indelible memory

by AlexSeanchai



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: 3 Sentence Fiction, Angst and Tragedy, Bee Marinette Dupain-Cheng, F/M, Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth Wins, Gaslighting, Guardian Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Ladynoir | Adrien Agreste as Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Ladybug, Memory Alteration, Podfic Welcome, Stubborn Marinette Dupain-Cheng
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:00:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26356861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexSeanchai/pseuds/AlexSeanchai
Summary: Everybody knows the war is over. Everybody knows the good guys lost.The girl who was Ladybug refuses to believe this, just as she refuses to believe the boy who was Chat Noir is dead.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 9
Kudos: 101





	indelible memory

Marinette's earlobes remain bare, though a tiny faux emerald winks from a gunmetal-finished ring in the helix of her right ear—she kept the digital receipt for the jewelry findings, and her Instagram has a before-and-after of the original piercing—and she's gone back to styling her hair in a bun, though she secures it now with a cloisonné comb enameled like wildflowers in honey (which she also has an Etsy receipt for, if anyone asks, and the almost-identical comb a-secret-admirer-who-totally-isn't-Rose gifted Juleka certainly isn't custom work): if any of her black-bloc superheroes ever identify Hawkmoth, if Marinette ever finds who took Tikki from her and Plagg from her partner and _her partner from her_ , she and Pollen can move to immobilize him in a heartbeat.

How much of Paris will back the girl who was Ladybug and the boy (if she ever finds him) who was Chat Noir against the man who may no longer call himself anything but his own mundane name and against his now equally innocuous sidekick, she doesn't know, but most of the students and staff of Collège Françoise Dupont will help their heroes in any way they can: even after Hawkmoth's wish blurred things enough that Max's mother refuses to believe her son on why she and all his friends flinch from butterflies, that Adrien's aunt isn't sure why she and her son stopped visiting her sister and nephew and brother-in-law, that Ondine doesn't know why she gave up her Olympic dream—even with so much recent history so unclear, Mme. Bustier's students' memories are crystal.

But no one knows Hawkmoth's or Mayura's or Chat Noir's name or face, except (most likely) Hawkmoth and Mayura: Marinette wishes she could believe Alya that her team of amateur investigative journalists will find who else's life changed the day Ladybug's and Chat Noir's effectively ended, she _wishes_ she could believe Kagami that the reason Chat Noir hasn't found them is the grave two weeks more recent with Adrien's name on the stone—no, her partner is alive somewhere and missing her, planning how to win Ladybug's heart by gifting her dead moths, dead bluebirds, precious stones (she'll take it, though her heart's been Chat Noir's a while), and as much as he's always hated leaving her and the open sky, losing Plagg must be killing him: she needs to find him, she needs to help him, she can think of few worse betrayals than giving up on him when she knows he needs her most.

**Author's Note:**

> [My comment policy](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/post/612627045048008704/as-a-fic-writer-i-need-every-reader-to-know): tl;dr happy comments make me happy. So do thinky comments, of course, but there exist jerks who think only thinky comments are worth anyone leaving.
> 
> Find me on [Dreamwidth](https://alexseanchai.dreamwidth.org/) and [Tumblr](https://alexseanchai.tumblr.com/).


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